MOVIES
This week two more big-hitting Best Picture Oscar contenders appear on NZ screens. True story baseball strategy movie Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as baseball manager Billy Beane who is determined to overcome a long losing streak using new analytical methods proposed by young Peter Brand (Jonah Hill). It may be a film about statistics, but its stellar cast elevate it to something much more charismatic.
Meanwhile Pitt's mate George Clooney teams up with Ryan Gosling (what a swoon-worthy duo) for political drama The Ides of March, in a struggle of shifting loyalties, and tricky questions about victory and virtue.
There's also another true story adaptation released - Big Miracle retells the tale of three whales stranded in an ice hole in Alaska in 1988 and stars Drew Barrymore.
TV
We're a couple of months behind, but this Sunday at 7.35pm, Prime are screening the latest Top Gear Christmas Special ahead of a new season starting next week. But this is no white Christmas, this year the team set off to India with various British products, including three cars, determined to promote the motherland to the East. Some of the Indian responses are truly memorable, and footage of the team driving down the highway in the middle of the night is genuinely scary.
Also this week we see the return of the much anticipated third local series of MasterChef. Come Tuesday night at 7.30pm on TV One we get to see the fresh new batch of hopefuls, ready to put their culinary skills on the line.
